The NHL will hold new talks to try to end the lockout and get arenas full again. / David Duprey, AP

by Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Sports

by Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Sports

A late-night negotiating session between NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHL Players' Association second-in-command Steve Fehr at an undisclosed location ended with a promise of more meetings to come.

"We are meeting again early in the week," Daly said.

The new talks likely will be Tuesday in New York.

The two parties met Saturday afternoon and didn't finish until 1 a.m.

"We covered all of the primary issues," Daly said. "We'll see where we go from here."

Said Fehr: "Hopefully we can continue the dialogue, expand the group, and make steady progress."

The central issue in the 50-day old NHL lockout is the division of the hockey-related revenue (HRR), which totaled more than $3.3 billion. Players received 57% of hockey-related revenue in the collective bargaining agreement that expired on Sept. 14, and owners want the new deal to include a 50-50 split. Plus, owners are seeking some significant changes in individual contract rights, in particular a limit on contract length to five years.

Daly and Fehr met after the NHL informed the players that they would be willing to discuss the idea of players having some protection on their individual contract values, even if the players' share of HRR was reduced to 50%. To achieve a pure 50-50 split, players would have to take a cut (through escrow) from individual deals they have negotiated, including contracts that were signed this past summer. Players put a part of their paycheck into escrow to ensure they don't exceed their share and get back any extra money, with interest. They view increased money lost through escrow the same as a pay cut.

In their previous proposal, owners had suggested a "make-whole" clause that essentially would give players back some money out of a pool the players funded. This week, owners said they were willing to talk about funding that "make-whole" fund themselves.

"We had a series of meetings over the course of the day and had a good, frank discussion on the most important issues separating us," Daly said.

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr warned his players Friday, through an email obtained by USA TODAY Sports, not to "read too much into media reports about informal phone calls" that went on last week.

Clearly, both sides seem to be embracing the idea that keeping talks out of the public eye might be more productive.

In the Friday memo, Fehr wrote about the Saturday meeting: "Both sides have agreed to keep confidential in an attempt to keep the focus on the talks and not on conducting media scrums."